Update

I have not posted here for a while. I started a new job and was busy learning it, it's something I really enjoy, but had to throw myself into it to be successful. I've reached a point where I can start to breathe again, and take time for other areas of my life once again.

So, to catch up with my situation with JJ. After he told me that he doesn't need me or really want to hear from me again unless I have something important to say, or unless there is an emergency, I did what he wanted me to do, and after a 3 hr conversation, pretty much went silent in his life.

The silence didn't last long. On HIS part, not mine. He started calling me more often than he ever has. Was he sorry for the things he had said? Did he not feel the same way anymore? I have no idea. I just talk to him when he calls and love him. For now that's all I can do. It went months before I was comfortable calling him again, but I have called him, and he thanks me whenever I call him.

We seem to have better conversations than we used to, I think I'm more relaxed because, hey, the worst thing in my mind that could happen, has already happened. He told me he didn't need me or want me, so what do I have to lose anymore? So I try my best to just be myself, if he likes me for who I am, that's wonderful, if he doesn't? Well, that will be heartbreaking, but I can't be someone that I'm not, just because he wants me to be.

One of the major problems is our religious beliefs. He is as strong in his beliefs as I am in mine. The problem is that we believe very differently. We have had many discussions, not arguments, about the differences, and I know he respects those discussions, and even enjoys them. He has never run across a Christian before that showed genuine love to him in spite of his beliefs, one that did not talk down to him, or put him down.

That is, until me. I don't think he quite knows what to do with me. I will not reject my Lord and Savior for anyone, and JJ knows this. And he respects this. I know for a fact that if I said, "ok, I think you're right, and I'm going to reject all my beliefs and follow what you believe from now on, and we will have all things in common, and won't that be great?" I KNOW for a fact, that he would lose all respect for me and would not be happy about this.

And then there is his adoptive mom. She claims to be a Christian and has taken sheer pleasure in showing me her "superior" knowledge of the Bible. (She is a college graduate, I'm not) She likes to spout off her knowledge of things like Jewish traditions, customs, etc, and even claims to have a favorite Jewish holiday. She has a lot of head knowledge of the Bible, but she doesn't have heart knowledge. I do not believe she has a relationship with Jesus Christ. I say this because you cannot be on both sides of the fence at the same time, like she tries to be.

JJ has this misconception of what love is. He believes that she loves him much more than I possibly ever can, and I don't think it's because she was there for him all these years, but more because she backs him up in his beliefs. Even while she is claiming to be a Christian. He believes that because she goes along with everything he says and does, and especially since she was the one to support him and buy him his first occult books to study at around the age of 12, that she has so much love for him. Whereas, on the other hand, I don't support him in this, so I can't possibly really love him. I risk my relationship with him because of all of it. A mother is not supposed to give a child something that will harm him, just because he wants it. I think it's all very confusing to him. She acts almost like a groupie of his, instead of his mom.

Some day he will understand the depth of my love for him, he just can't see it right now.

For now all I can do for him is pray for him, be there for him, and love him. No matter what. And I do.